KeySonic ACK-612 review

Take full control of your films, music and photos using this bargain keyboard

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Our Verdict

A decent budget keyboard, with enough to make itself appealing at the price

For

Bargain price

Good media keys

Against

Not the most comfortable to use

Feels cheap

At only £30, the KeySonic ACK-G12 is one of the cheapest and smallest keyboards on the market and has a host of great features that'll help you master your media PC.

Unlike many keyboard and mouse combos, the mouse in this case is a laptop-style track pad on the side of the keyboard. While the track pad feels like one taken from an early laptop, it's perfectly adequate for browsing files and Web pages, but users who demand higher precision will become frustrated at its unresponsiveness.

Basic budget keyboard

The keyboard itself is no ergonomic masterpiece, and feels like you're working on a laptop. The keys aren't well cushioned, but are fine for typing in Web addresses, playing games or writing emails from the comfort of your armchair.

There are also the usual play, pause, volume and track skipping buttons along the top for easy control of media playback, together with four customisable hot keys that can be reprogrammed to suit the user.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the KeySonic that set it apart from its more expensive counterparts. The range is extremely short and is easily impaired by large objects. Hiding the RF receiver at the back of the PC is a recipe for jumpy mouse tracking and poor typing response.

Overall, the KeySonic is a cheap, easy fix for anyone who needs a small compact keyboard for the living room environment for simple file and Web browsing. While power users will bemoan its cheap feel, it's a real bargain for casual media players.